


Wednesdays Child

by litlebritain



Series: In Paradisum [4]
Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, More angst, sorry for all the angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 11:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litlebritain/pseuds/litlebritain
Summary: My second piece of angst/drabble after watching The Remorseful day.In memory of the great Colin Dexter(Relevant to Endeavour too)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies again for all the angst but that episode gets me every time. I just think it gives Endeavour an undertone of sadness, knowing how it all ends
> 
> Anyway...

_Ensanguining the skies_  
_How heavily it dies_  
_Into the west away;_  
_Past touch and sight and sound_  
_Not further to be found,_  
_How hopeless under ground_  
_Falls the remorseful day._

\- A.E. Houseman

 

_What would Thursday think?_

That was the question that sat heavy on Strange as the ailing Morse retreated from his office.

Fred Thursday. The great man of wisdom who had always been there to pick Morse up off the floor when he fainted, take him home to sleep when he was stabbed, patch him up when he had been beaten, send him home when he was ill, sit with him when he was drugged and constantly chastise him for drinking too much. Avenging any of the criminal fraternity who put harm Morse’s way and making sure the young man ate a hot meal every once in a while

They had a special connection - Strange had seen it from the start. A deep rooted bond that couldn’t be broken by anything life had thrown at them. There had been periods in the middle where Bright had assigned the jealous DS Jakes as Thursdays bagman, then when Morse and Thursday fell out the Inspector had started to favour Strange himself. He had wondered if (and a tiny part of him hoped that) he was starting to steal Morse’s spot but ultimately the two men had always come back together, closer and with a deeper level of understanding. It had always been Morse, it could never be anyone else. Thursday had cherished him and it was clear for all to see that Thursday had adopted the stray DC, wanted to spur his young protégé on to great heights, the best of his ability. A flourishing career, a wife and a family like the Inspector himself had, a bright future. Nothing but the best for his bagman.

How did it end up like this?

Two stomach ulcers in as many years, a heart condition to boot and a shadow of his former self. Just enough of the eternal lingering stubbornness coming through to prevent him from accepting the inevitable and spending his last days in the comfort of his own home. By and large Strange wasn’t a sentimental man but it grieved him, pained him greatly to think what the Inspector would say if he could see what the once strong, unrelenting young man had become. It was a dead weight on his chest, a constant ache in his stomach.

Thursday would have been able to break through Morse’s iron will, make him take resting seriously. Or maybe he would even have been able to intercede earlier down the line, stop him from drinking himself into an early grave, convince him to retire after the first scare. The man who had always been so fiercely protective of Morse and invested in his wellbeing was gone, and in his place Strange had failed him. Failed both of them.

Strange wondered if the great Inspector had known deep down how it would really end, if he had known that Morse was just slightly too much on the wrong wavelength to ever fit in the world and find success. Find happiness. If he had hoped that he could change fate, all the while knowing that he couldn’t.

For the first and only time since the seventies, Strange was glad Thursday was no longer around, glad that there was no one else from those early days to watch the painful deterioration of their once energetic young friend into the morose shell that had just shuffled out of his office. To watch the inevitability of time creep up on the Detective Constable that had once thought he was invincible.

Glad more than anything that there was no one else to there to see the end.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've tried to be as vague as possible about Thursday given that we dont know his fate yet, but as he doesn't appear in Inspector Morse I am working on the assumption that he has already passed. I'm also working on the assumption that that is what seperated them, as I refuse to believe their relationship could be irreparably damaged. Apologies if anything else is incorrect or you dont think its like Morse, I'm not nearly as clued up on old Morse as I am on Endeavour


End file.
